The modern workplace is filled with stress, constant change, rampant conflict and employee disgruntlement. But managers frequently assume it can be remedied with a simple, even obvious, quick fix that will make everything alright.

But this assumes management can and will apply appropriate solutions to problems they themselves might or might not create. And the assumption that management can do this; that it is indeed the source of the solution and not the problem, is the first mistake.

A good deal of the malaise facing our workplaces is a direct result of managerial malpractices and the organizations’ inadequacy in dealing with them. Last month I wrote about employee malpractices, but we rarely hear much about their managers’ behavior. A sure sign that managers may be part of the problem and not the solution is their lack of knowledge about the vast management literature. Perhaps even more damaging is their unwillingness to involve their employees, many of whom are motivated and knowledgeable, in seeking solutions to the  problems they face.

It is because of the importance of the managerial role in the social system of the workplace that the following managerial malpractices are such heartbreakers. So much potential is lost. So much energy squandered. So many successes deferred.

You may detect a tinge of anger coursing through the following descriptions of these all too common malpractices. That is because of the great deal of pain these practices cause for so many people. Indeed, managers behaving in these ways are doing more damage than if they did nothing at all.

First, An Inappropriate Attitude

There are a variety of ways incompetent managers destroy the potential of tens, hundreds, even thousands of individuals. First, we must understand an attitude that permeates the thinking and behavior of many of the malpracticing managers. The attitude is of “superiority over” without “responsibility to” the “subordinate” or colleague. Like governance, parenting, doctoring, and teaching, managers have a sacred responsibility to execute their duties without doing harm and in a way that enriches and enlivens those they touch as well as the organization in which they work.

While great pains were taken to cautiously assign powers to our political leaders to guard against what was believed to be the inevitable corruption of those in office, we have totally ignored these principles as they apply to power holders (managers) in the workplace. They are virtual dictators over all they supervise. The job of manager is thought to be a simple one-person affair which is unforgivable when, by so doing, he or she ignores the contributions and potential of their own organization and their workpartners – “colleagues and subordinates” – just because, given the power, they assume they are more knowledgeable, more creative, and more capable than others. This attitude is archaic and just an act of ego-gratification. Yet, this behavior is encouraged since tradition has created the mindset that the vast majority of the labor are virtual wage-slavers disempowered from making decisions regarding their work and their lives in the workplace.

Management As A Fringe Benefit

It is sad, to say the least, that while democracy and entrepreneurship are breaking out in some of the unlikeliest places on Earth, workers in the most open economies willingly subjugate themselves to unelected, virtually unaccountable bosses who tyrannize them daily. And, as Shorris (1984) reminded us long ago: “In business, [people] do not arrive at totalitarian methods because they are evil, but because they wish to do the good in what seems to them the most efficient way, or because they wish merely to survive, or with no more evil intent than the desire to prosper” (p.16).

As Scott Adams shows us each day in his syndicated Dilbert cartoon strip, managers are all too frequently malicious, bull-headed, unresponsive, ignorant, fearful and even violent. While the organization often survives such managers, the waste of human talent is a dreadful commentary on the system. Surely such organizations suffer more than they know.

Managerial abuse has become a form of acceptable corrupt practice – legal but unethical – especially when the manager sees the appointment to the position as anointment. These managers perceive themselves as masters of a fiefdom. Direct reports become servants expected to follow through and carry out every conceivable whim thrust upon them and to routinely be given assignments late Friday that are due on Monday, or to be sent to corporate Siberia for the pleasure of uprooting families just to test their loyalty. The truly disturbing feature of this behavior is that such managers are just modeling their own manager’s behavior and in so doing give the impression to the next generation that that is the way effective management is practiced.

Managerial Incompetence By Ignorance

Most managers have never formally learned how to manage people (to lead, coach, be with constructively, support, encourage, inspire). Unless they received training in the armed services or through extracurricular activities in school or, perhaps, in self-financed training programs, the people-management aspects of collegiate business studies programs and on-the-job opportunities are simply too trivial to matter.

This is the frightening and demoralizing fact of work life that is creating a tragedy of untold consequences for thousands of people in the workforce subject to the desperate trial and error methods used by most managers. The helter-skelter adoption of various strategies and techniques to lead and motivate, to communicate and inspire – in actuality, to cajole, control and intimidate others to perform for the good of the manager, the company and distant stockholders – have left professionals and union members fed up.

The constant process of reorganizing and instituting and reinstating short-lived “motivational” or “quality” or “efficiency” or “customer first” campaigns no longer fools anyone. Most managers using this helter-skelter approach only demonstrate their ignorance and whether or not they fail miserably their followers will be suspect of them and any “program” they try to implement.

Managers believing that management is their “right” will, of course, eventually destroy their credibility. And as this practice becomes widespread it destroys the credibility of the entire system. How long will it be before the many who have been subject to the capriciousness, arbitrariness and ineptness of incompetent “bosses” cry “enough!”

Raw Personal Power

(The “Bottom Line” Is Just The Excuse)

It is easy to understand an individual’s lack of skill to practice sound people-management. But, for some managers there is a deliberate, gratuitously malicious disregard of solid management principles simply because these do not reflect their personal preferences and inclinations. In few professional realms can an individual’s prerogative be so arrogantly exercised.

An accountant cannot choose to disregard the GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) no matter how personally objectionable the principles may be. Engineers cannot ignore the appropriate mixture of materials comprising concrete and expect to escape professional and legal sanctions. A lawyer cannot disregard court procedure when conducting a case. Yet anyone holding the position of manager can virtually do as they please in terms of the treatment of “subordinates.” If a manager believes it is “motivational” to threaten the workforce with dismissal, so be it.

Indeed, because we are increasingly subject to a system that unashamedly espouses the profit motive as the basis for all action, each decision is justified simply because it is thought to be the most profitable. Thus, the system itself encourages managers to disregard sound interpersonal behaviors and people-management processes.

The literature is replete with research support for the value of creativity and participation, of ownership and empowerment. The literature is also abundantly clear about the requirements for our collective satisfaction and survival. Resistance to practicing our knowledge is not due to the intellectual difficulty in understanding the concepts. It is due to the exercise of personal prerogatives, the expression of individual personality and the personal responses crafted (intentionally or otherwise) by individuals who do not practice valuing the collective and who choose to blame the constraints imposed by the system itself to substantiate this behavior.

For example, time pressure alone discourages, if not denies, many managers the means with which to practice what they know to be good interpersonal relations. This is so appalling to some people that the greatest pain suffered on the job is the knowledge that they are not living their values; they are caught up in a system which feels beyond their control. They live a demanding way of life requiring a sacrifice of part of their humanity just to “put food on the table.”

The Joy of Exercising Power

Over the last fifty years, actually since the Industrial Revolution began, there have been coops, self-managing organizations and a variety of participative management styles that proved successful on any and all empirical measures. Yet they are rare. It seems the need to crush change, even when it is demonstrably best for profits, is due to management’s attachment to the powers and perks of office. It is the rare manager who can turn away from the seductive trappings of power and privilege for which they have vied throughout their professional careers. Without a change in the structures of the workplace, the re-design of internal relationships, and the reformulation of assumptions about one’s appropriate role in the workplace, real reform and power sharing will likely remain an elusive goal.

Trial and Error Management Leads to a Fad Frenzy

Trial and error management embraces each new change-management fad with a fervor unknown outside cult circles. Even the most inglorious examples of the fads enter the bestiary of management techniques with only the slightest critical examination. A sure indication of nascent fad fever is hearing the refrain, “What’s the latest?” at professional gatherings. These events result in thoughtless incantations of current buzzwords rather than real understanding and implementation of management change strategies with intentionality.

Lack of attention to the system is the reason managers experience so many and varied symptoms driving them in a frenzied search for panaceas. Even managers who are capable, sincere and willing to treat breakdowns simply have not become aware that the locus of most problems is in the system itself or due to the inadequacy of their people management skills.

The Bully

A case comes to mind of the CEO wanting to make a quick, powerful first impression. A family brewery turned to an outside individual to become its CEO. His first two acts almost caused a revolution. After the company had devoted a long time instituting teams, he unilaterally declared that there was “no time for that anymore.” Attention first had to be placed on “improving the profitability picture” as if teamwork and profitability are unrelated! Second, to get new ideas he believed it was necessary to “churn up the organization.” His plan was to fire the “bottom ten percent” of performers each year even if the entire workforce was exceptional. It was this particularly nasty and misguided effort that the brewery owners refused to agree with, “After all, we have been like a family for generations.” While his second act was reversed by the family, the CEO remains at the helm, and the efforts of the organization development department to build self-managing, high-performing teams was obliterated over night.

Not long after that adjustment the CEO was successful in disbanding the entire organization development (OD) department because it was no longer justified in light of the streamlining policy – “to do only those activities directly related to brewing and selling beer.” This act generated doubts in the workplace spawning questions like, “when is the accounting department going to be laid off?” Here we have a combination of bullying behavior and managerial incompetence by ignorance. These actions represent a failure to understand the role and value of the OD department. Disbanding the OD department without discussion, sent a message that the new CEO planned to “motivate” his staff solely through fear. These events created a massive morale problem and the psychological on-the-job withdrawal of hundreds of people from the workplace.

Finally: It Is Really About Character

It is not taught in business schools and seemingly not taught at home anymore either, but the lack of character exemplified by the low integrity in organizational relationships (“Sorry, but this is a business decision, nothing personal. You’re sacked. You have ten minutes to clear out your desk.”), declining respect for others and a studied unwillingness to communicate authentically: (“If I tell people what I really think, they’ll use it against me.”), are the underlying reasons for the widespread demonstration of managerial malpractices. There is widespread disregard for, or blindness to, building reciprocal, balanced relationships.

These malpractices can be dealt with and eliminated from organizations willing to act with integrity, intentionally and for the good of each person involved. But it takes courage and that is another omission of the business schools and doesn’t count much in business.

Shorris, E. (1984). Scenes From Corporate Life. New York: Penguin, p. 16.

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John Nirenberg’s intimate knowledge of leadership began in the 1st grade where, as the biggest kid in the class with amazing eye-hand coordination, he was the most sought after dodge ball player. By the 6th and final grade in elementary school he was the longest serving Captain of the Safety-Patrol. Alas, long before Enron, long before the collapse of MCI and Anderson Consulting, long before Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco International was convicted of grand larceny, he was fired in front of his class for forgetting to remove his chewing gum before entering the school building.

From this auspicious beginning John studied leadership management and group dynamics before embarking on a career of service, teaching and consulting in organizational behavior, workplace community and leadership. His work has taken him to 122 countries. Along the way he spent more than nine years in Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and Thailand, wrote four books, published over 80 articles in 45 journals on five continents; and, gave over 80 professional presentations and workshops in 17 countries—all of this in his life-long quest to understand and appreciate collective and productive human behavior. And he’s still an optimist.